


Not the Hippies!

by IntoBeyondDarkness



Series: Fixing the Madagascar Timeline [4]
Category: Madagascar (Movies), Penguins of Madagascar
Genre: Abandonment, Anger, Attempted Murder, Betrayal, Forgiveness, Gen, Penguins, Returning Home, Revenge, Stranded
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-05
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2017-12-28 11:23:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/991457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IntoBeyondDarkness/pseuds/IntoBeyondDarkness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"JUST KIDDING! WE'RE NEVER COMING BACK!" They're back! Alex, Marty, Gloria, and Melman have returned to the zoo and are beyond peeved at the penguins for leaving the four of them behind while they returned to the zoo with the lemurs! Created by RandomFanfictioner13 and TheSkivate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

"I never thought I'd see the day…" Skipper shook his head. "A pussycat gone off the deep end. What kind of world do we live in these days?"

"Um, the world doesn't look too great upside down, Skippah." Private called out as he swayed in his ankle traps that hung from the ceiling.

"Well whatever world we live in, it's a cold and dark one. It's one full of lonely nights and the deep darkness of the very soul….Kowalski! Options!" Skipper ordered.

Kowalski blinked, his flippers hanging limply below his head. "Well, Skipper, I…can't offer any options at the moment."

"And why not, soldier?"

"It seems that I've dropped my notebook."

Skipper narrowed his eyes. "Can you retrieve it and  _then_ give me those options?"

Kowalski, Private, Rico and Skipper looked down to see the small notebook being burned to ashes in the lava below them.

"Negative, Skipper." Kowalski replied. "And…let me be the first to say…" His bottom beak quivered and he burst into tears. "It's been an honor serving with you all these years!"

"Dangit soldier! Don't you do this!" Skipper scolded with his voice breaking a bit. "Don't you break down on me! We're going to make it out of this! You hear me?! Do you hear me?! Kowalski, you better hear me!"

"We're going to die!" Kowalski screamed, crying full force.

Seeing his friend crying like that got under Private's feathers and he too started to wail. "I'm scared, Skippah! I don't want to die!"

Rico started whining too.

"We're not going to die, men! Pull yourselves together! That's an order!" Skipper commanded and sighed because his team kept wailing. "Private! I'm warning you! They'll be no more Lunacorns for you in the future if you don't dry those waterworks!"

Private sniffed back his sobs. "There won't be any Lunacorns in my future anyhow Sk-Skippah….b-because…I won't even be in my own future! Ah!" He started hyperventilating.

"Oh come on! We can't be giving up that easily! Rico! Help me out here!" Skipper turned to their weapons expert for some help and reassurance.

"Bye-bye!" Rico mumbled sadly.

Skipper groaned.

"What's the matter, Skipper? Having trouble controlling your teamm?" Dr. Blowhole teased with a smirk.

"Butt out Blowhole! I said we're getting out of this and that's it!" Skipper yelled with a well-aimed glare towards the evil dolphin.

"Easily said than done, wouldn't you think?" The dolphin asked. "You've lost, Skipper. There is nothing for you silly peng-you-ins now. No help is coming and you're all out of options."

Skipper's frown deepened visibly.

"And it's all thanks to my little helper!" Dr. Blowhole marveled.

Rico scoffed. "Lil'?" He exclaimed ridiculously. "Tha' not lil, tha' big!" He growled an impression as a model. "Big tee'!"

"Big tea?" Private questioned.

"No!" Rico answered.

"Big teeth?" Kowalski asked.

"Uh huh." Rico nodded vigorously. "Big tee'!"

Skipper nodded. "Well I can't argue with you there. Cat need's to see a dentist or a shrink ray about that or something. It's just unnatural…"

Alex the Lion put his paw over his mouth, subconsciously, poking at his teeth. He groaned and asked. "Is there any way to, like, speed this thing up?"

"Ooh!" Dr. Blowhole smiled. "Someone's eager! But no! I want to savor this moment for as long as possible! It's not every day I get to see my mortal foes meet their doom."

"Uh, correction!" Alex said. "You mean  _our_  mortal foes."

Blowhole chuckled and corrected. "Yes, of course.  _Our._ "

"You'll never get away with this!" Private yelled, voice shaking, still shedding tears that would just evaporate into the air, making his words all the less convincing. "You never have, never will!"

"Ah, but that's where you're wrong, young Private." Blowhole said, getting as close to the penguins as the vat of lava underneath them would allow. "We will get away with this, and you will all meet your fiery doom! Nothing can stop this!" He cackled.

"You bully! You're nothing but a big bully!" Private cried. "You'll never amount to anything good! The Lunacorns have a saying for dolphins like you!"

Dr. Blowhole laughed at the young penguin. "And just what do the Lunacorns have to say about me?"

"Bad people will never ever be good and…" Private nodded as he spoke.

Skipper, Rico, Kowalski, Alex and Blowhole waited for the penguin to finish his saying but the end never came.

Blowhole nodded. "And? What else?"

Private looked less confident in what he was saying. "Well, I don't know rather. The day I was watching that episode on the telly was the day Rico got his new missile launcher and…I think you could understand the rest of that…"

"Kablam-o!" Rico exclaimed, laughing happily.

"That was you?!" Skipper asked angrily and Rico shrugged sheepishly.

"Sorreh!"

"You know what? I think we will speed this along…" Blowhole said coolly and ordered one of the many lobster henchmen to activate the death trap.

As the four penguins began to lower downwards together, the red lava was reflected into their eyes and their confidence of getting out of this one drained immensely. The lava hurled up and singed some of their feathers.

"Say good-bye  _Skipper_." Blowhole taunted .

Skipper just stared down as their imminent fate drew closer every second, and as the cries of his men beat against his eardrums, the guilt finally wrecked into him that all of this was his entire fault.


	2. Chapter 2

_~PoM & M~_

Let's just rewind about a week and a half or so to see how this whole mess started. Would you believe it began with Private sleeping in his bunk like normal? Well, it did. What Private was dreaming about, however, wasn't all that normal.

Private always had dreams. The little penguin loved his dreams. They had all his favorite things; his friends, Lunacorns, and all the Peanut Butter Winky's he could imagine!

Just like the Lunacorns say, imagination goes a long way and is very important. The penguin had a good imagination; he was always very optimistic and hopeful and he loved all his friends. He'd never wish anything bad to happen to them. He also loved his team; Skipper, Kowalski, and Rico. The three were closer to the young penguin than anyone else, they were his family.

He had a lot of friends he thought of as family here at the zoo. Big ones, small ones, short ones, and tall ones. They all made up one big and peculiar family of animals of all kinds. He loved everyone in the zoo, but he did have some friends outside of the zoo. Max the moon-cat was a friend, and good old Fred. Despite their differences on where to use the loo, he liked to think of Frankie the pigeon a friend as well. This brought him to thinking about friends he even had out of this country, and ones he met outside of the country. He'd met many friends back on Madagascar. The lemurs were awful friendly there, especially Willy the lemur who seemed to like everyone he met a whole lot. Nice Willy, what a guy.

He'd met Julien, Maurice, and Mort back on Madagascar and the lemurs had come with them to their trek back to the zoo. They'd gone many places and made new friends. From Madagascar, to Europe, Rome, and back to the zoo where they all lived today.

The private was having an almost livid dream, morphing to all the fun times he's had with all his friends. But his dream was almost livid, meaning he didn't have complete control of it. It began to spin out of control in the form of a plane crash, and his lovely dream transformed into a horrible nightmare. He saw himself disappointing all his friends and letting them all down. His teammates stared at him with disapproving looks and the entire zoo shunned him with his own shame. He tried begging for their forgiveness for letting them all down, for whatever he did that caused them to be sore. Then his dream morphed into some whole other scene. He was on a plane with his team, and they were all laughing such horrid evil laughs, staring down at some poor saps who weren't lucky enough to board the craft in time. Was that…? No, it couldn't be! But it WAS!

In his dream he watched Skipper laugh down on them shouting as if it were the funniest thing in the world and that's when he heard his leader say it. The words of betrayal.

Private tossed and turned in his bunk as he remembered every time his leader ever said those words…

_"We just left, Private! WE AREN'T GOING BACK! You should have gone before we left!"_

_"If that's how you feel about it then have it your way, Marlene! Just remember this; If you kick me out of your habitat, I AM NEVER COMING BACK!"_

_"I refuse to go back! I AM NEVER GOING BACK TO DENMARK! DO YOU HEAR ME?!"_

" _Not Hoboken…NEVER! YOU HEAR ME, HUH?"_

_"Never going back to that needle-pushing quack doctor again! Man's a butcher with a degree!"_

_"I hope you got what you wanted out of that store, men. Because there are no returns and we aren't going back."_

Then there's the one that haunts him the most, the one he could never forget as long as he lived. The big one, the one that changed everything and went against all morals.

 _"We'll be back from our gambling spree in a couple of weeks, or whenever the gold runs out."_  Skipper announced over the radio of the then lifting off plane.  _"…JUST KIDDING! WE'RE NEVER COMING BACK! …Initiate warp drive!"_

Private still remembers the hurt on Alex, Marty, Melman, and Gloria's faces when they just took off without looking back. At first the small penguin thought the leader was joking when he said that, but after a quick look around the cockpit to see that no one was laughing, he saw it as the horrible truth it was. They were really abandoning their friends! And what was worse, there was nothing the private could do to change Skipper's mind as they flew off to Europe.

The private awoke with a start, sitting up breathing heavily in his bunk. The young cadet looked around, both above and below his bed space. He was thrown into immediate alarm. How could he oversleep? What would Skipper say to him about this? He could just hear his leader now, scolding him! …Actually, he  _did_ hear Skipper's voice.

"I AM NEVER COMING BACK...!" The leader's voice yelled, echoing off the HQ walls.

The private gasped, fearing that his dream was coming back to haunt him again. Then he heard the rest of the statement.

"…to play this game with you guys!" Skipper finished, mildly annoyed. "Seriously! Kowalski takes too long with his turns and Rico's a cheating maniac!"

"Nuh uh!" Rico defended but accidentally burped up an extra Ace card he'd been hiding in his stomach. The weapon's expert blinked and shrugged sheepishly. "He he he…" Rico chuckled.

On the other side of the makeshift table in the middle of their HQ, Kowalski concentrated on using his abacus to count. The analyst defended himself while sliding the pieces to either side of the math tool. "I don't take too long with my turns, Skipper. I am simply multiplying the number of cards I have by the number of turns I get to calculate my average of winning the game."

"Smoked salmon, man! This shouldn't have to be so complicated!" Skipper complained.

But the analyst wasn't hearing him. "Mm-hm…Just as I suspected!" analyzed Kowalski. "Skipper, what's the full diameter across of your wrist?"

"Uh, captain brainiac, we're penguins! We don't  _have_  wrists! And if we did, I would've opened mine up ten minutes after starting this outlandish card game!" The leader confessed.

"Right…" Kowalski picked up his clipboard and jotted down notes. "Penguins…" the analyst spoke the words slowly to get them down on the paper. "…don't…have…wrists. I got it now! The equation shouldn't be divided by the diameter of a wrist but by the degrees of which the flipper is turned! Genius! I'll be ready to take my turn in just a few moments, Skipper!"

Skipper groaned and tossed the upper half of his body forward on the table. The leader beat his fisted flipper into the table in mental agony.

In his bunk, Private sighed in relief that everything was normal. He also noticed that today was Saturday, which meant it was rest and relaxation day. He hadn't overslept and he didn't miss training like he at first thought. Today wouldn't start so bad after all. The young penguin stretched with a yawn and slid down out of his bunk to join the rest of his team at the table.

"Good morning, Skippah." Private greeted his leader with a smile.

Skipper lifted his face from the table with a grin at the young boy. "Hey boys, look who finally decided to get up. Morning, Private. Hope you slept well."

"Alright I suppose." Private shrugged as he sat at the table, but his leader could read him like a book.

"Nope, that's not gonna fly with me. What's with that  _outlandish_  look in those eyes, soldier?"

"Skippah..."

"What's on your mind?"

The private sighed. He knew he could never get anything past Skipper so why was he trying? It was pointless to try, so he prepared himself to say the inevitable. I mean it needed to be at least brought up, right?

Private fiddled with his flippers and then looked up, rubbing his feathers on his chest nervously. "How you do suppose Alex and the others are doing then?"

There was a silence around the HQ and an awkward cough from the analyst as he hastily excused himself from the card game, mumbling something about his equation requiring a protractor which he needed to get from his lab. It was obviously an excuse to get far away from the conversation.

Rico looked indifferent before he realized he was supposed to react the same as Kowalski, so he looked at the silence some more before humorously beginning to brokenly whistle while casually walking away from the table.

Skipper shrugged. "I'm sure they're alright out there in the wild. They wanted to go to Connecticut right? I bet they're having fun there. Those crazy hippies, probably sitting in a drum circle talking about world peace and whatever it is hippie pansy freaks have to talk about." The leader waved off, completely convinced with his own theories. "The hippies are fine."

"Perhaps we shouldn't have left them, sir. Maybe we should have gone back to help them." Private said.

"Private, please, they're over six feet tall and one of them's a psychotic lion with crazy hair. The humans aren't going to mess with something like that. I know _I_  wouldn't, no. Leave that to the lion tamers and animal rights wackos. THEY can deal with lions, but us? No can do."

"Skippah, I'm just worried that-"

"They're not going to get back here and enact some horrible revenge on us if that's what you're worried about. It's best to just let it go and live your life. The past is the past."

"But Skippah-"

"Just forget about it, Private and that's an order. All that's behind us now. What's done is done. There's no way they're getting back here, and like I said, they're fine. Do you really think something can take down a lion? And before you suggest that psycho of a woman. We took care of her, didn't we? Last we saw of her she was on a boat, in a crate, full speed ahead for Madagascar. There's no way she'll come back either. We took the plane." Skipper laughed. "What's she gonna do? SWIM back? Ha! I'd like to see her try! Nah, we're fine, they're fine, everyone's fine. As it should be."

Kowalski had made it back with the protractor hallway through the rant but found himself unable to use it. He himself was thinking back to when they first escaped the zoo, as was the other two outranked penguins. The analyst admitted that back then he was a bit on the dull and emotionless side. It was unnerving to him now.

Rico remembered when he was always beyond excited and willing to blow things up more than necessary. He had fun. Too much fun. "He he he! Aw'right! Kaboom!"

Private was still frowning as he thought over and over about their friends they betrayed. How could they do such a thing and not look back the way they did? Were they completely heartless birds back then? Were they always so rash?

"Kaboom! Kaboom!" The weapon's expert exclaimed over and over, babbling and having a relapse of his past streaks of uncontrollable rowdiness. He was smacked back to reality by his leader and he looked down just like his other two subordinate teammates. "Oh…heh…bad kaboom! Yeh…"

"Trust me, it was best we did what we did, leaving those freaks behind." Their leader reassured.

The three subsidiary penguins gave each other unconvinced looks. Maybe it  _was_  a bit harsh to abandon the giraffe, hippo, zebra, and lion. It may have even been wrong of them to do so. They didn't like doing the wrong thing. They admit they didn't do as much objecting as they should have when their leader opted on leaving the four zoosters, but it was a different time back then! They were all different back when they first escaped under the walls of the zoo back in 2005. The team was still new to them and they even admit they had no idea what they were getting themselves into a good majority of the time. But they did learn, and all four became better penguins because of it. Now that they looked at it, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing that they abandoned their old friends. But it was already too late to back out of whatever assumptions their regretful looks gave their leader.

"You don't believe me?" asked their commander.

"It's not that at all, Skippah." Private started, defending himself and the other two penguins. "It's just that we feel kind of bad about leaving them is all. I'm just not sure if we did the right thing by just abandoning them in their time of need."

Kowalski and Rico nodded in solemn agreement. They too had some guilt stored up inside.

"Very well," Skipper sighed and began leaving the base. "Follow me."

"Uh, where are we going?" asked Kowalski, confused at the sudden instructions.

"Topside." The leader said, already halfway up the ladder. "I want to show you boys something…"


	3. Chapter 3

_Not the Hippies!_

_~PoM & M~_

The four penguins stood atop the false iceberg in their enclosed habitat. Skipper just stood there and did nothing. This worried his team. What was their leader trying to show them? Was there a trick to what he was doing? Should they…turn their heads to be able to see it?

"Um, Skippah?" Private finally decided to speak up. "What should we be looking for?"

"You should be looking around!" The commando cried. "Remember where those hippies habitats were?"

The three looked over to the four habitats. The lemur's habitat used to belong to that lion named Alex, Marlene's used to be the hippo Gloria's, Joey's pen was the giraffe's place once upon a time, and Bada and Bing have the old zebra enclosure.

"Well, yes," Kowalski stated. "We see where they used to be. They have now been replaced wi-"

"Exactly!" Skipper interrupted. "They've been replaced!"

Kowalski looked at his leader as if the penguin had lost it. " _Sooo_ …what's your point?"

"My point-" Skipper flung his wing around the analyst's shoulders. "-dear Kowalski, is this! Would these habitats have been replaced, IF, those freaks were here to inhabit them?"

"No…I guess not." Kowalski drawled out, still unsure about where Skipper was going with this.

"So, had we not left the hippies where they were, we wouldn't have had Marlene and Joey and all these other animals as fellow zoosters! Remember the times we've had with them?"

"Yeah…" Kowalski was still unsure.

"Compare that to our times with the hippies." Skipper challenged.

Private seemed to be catching on. "Alex did frighten me that one time so long ago… He's so awfully and terribly big…"

Skipper nodded enthusiastically. "Exactly! You remember back in Madagascar? The cat was a CARNIVORE! He'd endanger all zoo life as we know it! There are no meat-eaters here! This zoo is strictly vegetarian!"

Private blinked. "But what about Roger, sir?" the private asked and the two tallest penguins nodded, what ABOUT Roger?

Skipper sounded unsure but held his argument anyway. "Okay so this zoo is 99% vegetarian."

"Ah, Skipper. We too are carnivores." Kowalski pointed out. "We eat fish, also a kind of flesh."

Skipper shrugged. "So this zoo is 95% vegetarian."

"Wha bou Maleen?" Rico asked.

Skipper growled in irritation. "9 ** _6_**  percent then. And besides, it's fish! No one's ever going to miss a fish! It's a fish and everyone knows fish don't have relatives!"

"...Fish have rela-" Kowalski started.

"You get my point!" Skipper shouted with an eye roll. "That lion's a menace! Half the zoo's budget went to his wacko steak obsession! And he had the people under his full control!"

Private gasped. "Control?"

Skipper nodded. "Yeah! Don't you remember?" the leader said and pretended to roar fiercely. "ROAR!"

Private and Kowalski's beaks made an 'o' shape as they recalled the lion's old act.

"Ohhh." the private drawled.

"Right..." Kowalski scratched the back of his head.

"Do you get a bit of the picture now?" Skipper asked.

Kowalski nodded slowly. "I suppose we understand a bit of your reasoning, Skipper."

Private rubbed his neck feathers. "So what you're saying is, if we didn't leave them behind, we wouldn't have met all of the friends we have now?"

Skipper blinked. Actually he meant something on the lines of that psychotic lion using his mediocre act to take over the whole zoo, self-proclaiming himself as a king and the hippies then taking over the world. But the private's reasoning worked too. "Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Also a risk of a hippie uprising. But that one's just an added bonus for those freaks."

"Well," Kowalski spoke as they waddled around the zoo "I think we're starting to get it now"

"Good," Skipper side smirked at them and led them through the zoo. "But I'm not done. This brings me to my next point. Look around you, boys. What do you see?"

"Um... The zoo?" Kowalski was still a bit skeptic. Was that how he was supposed to respond?

"Right...but what do you see in the zoo, Kowalski? Hm?"

"I see many species of animals such as Marlene the Asian Otter, three different lemur types-being the Ring-Tailed, Mouse, and Aye-Aye. Then there's-" Skipper was quick to slap him in the face. "Sorry sir. You were saying?"

Skipper gave an eye roll at the hopeless analyst. "I* see a content and peaceful zoo based on equality and penguin supervision, not some one-lion show! I hate to admit it but I'm happy to have RING-TAIL next door than that psychotic hippie! Ring-tail's actually more deal-able! I'd take blaring noise for senseless noise any day!"

"Well, yes, I suppose so." Kowalski shrugged as they started passing by the lemur habitat.

"You boys like Marlene don't you?"

"Of course we do!" Private answered this time.

"Well Marlene's not here anymore!" Skipper exclaimed.

"Wha!?" Rico cried.

Private gasped. "What happened to Marlene!"

"She's gone!" Skipper shouted, "Replaced by that wuss giraffe complaining that his spots give off a  _'slight tingle in the sunlight!'_  " the leader mocked .

The three penguins were speechless. They didn't know what was going on, but they were getting a bit freaked out!

"B-B-But, but..." Private stammered.

"Um, sir?" Kowalski started as they stopped in front of the lemur's enclosure. "Do you mean to show us how we would have felt had we brought the four of them?"

"No one's here!" Skipper went on. "It's a desolate wasteland, men! Run by HIPPIES! They've TAKEN OVER and we're all done for! The humans are going crazy over them, slaving to give them every luxurious need from prescriptions to chlorine pools to treadmill's and murals and BEEF! And you know what happens when they run out of beef...? ...They CAN'T run out of beef for that lion, now can they? So you know what they do? Huh? Do you know what we are, soldiers? WE'RE STEAK!"

At this point Private had fainted into Kowalski's arms.

"Your point, Skipper?" Kowalski questioned with a raised brow and looked down at private. "Preferably before he once again awakens."

"Do I have to spell it out for you? Those freaks are bad news! It's a completely GOOD thing we left them behind! If we didn't then we never would have met anyone here! The zoo's budget would all go to that lion and to a lesser extent, his overlooked friends! Our operations would be compromised with all those people coming to praise that over-conditioning pansy, and to be honest, he never liked us in the first place! The only reason he ever started to pay us attention was when we were helping those hippies travel out of the kindness of our hearts! We wanted to stay in Madagascar! But what did we do instead? We salvaged a plane, and took them to Africa, salvaged a bunch of tourist cars and the plane again, and said we'd come back for them! And what did they do? They cut short our gambling spree! Do we own an Airbus A380? A gold one even?"

Kowalski's beak quivered as he thought of the loss. "No..." the analyst started to sob, still holding the unconscious private. "No we do not!" he cried with tears. He had wanted that plane and wanted it badly. They weren't able to get it because the hippies had barged in on their gambling spree, forcing them to have to buy a circus instead later on. By that time they were out of cash and it was goodbye to getting a brand new airplane.

Rico hauled Private over his shoulder so that Kowalski's flippers were free during the sob fest.

"Buck up, soldier." Skipper told the analyst gently. "We've all lost something on this whole journey. I for one, lost a love." the leader admitted, thinking back to the African nights on the dashboard of the tour jeeps with his special someone.

"At least yours came back to you!" Kowalski exclaimed. "Oh Airbus, hot mama, I never got to tame you!" the analyst wiped his eyes and calmed down. "Skipper, you're right. We have done what was best for everyone. Had we brought the four of them back they still would not have been satisfied. They do not have the ability to properly select where they want to be without mind changing way too late. I am sorry I've ever doubted you for a moment and am behind you approximately 100%, sir!" Kowalski saluted.

Skipper faintly smiled. "Thank-you Kowalski."

Private regained consciousness dizzily and was set back on the ground, holding a flipper to his head. "Would everyone in the zoo really be gone then, Skippah? If we had taken them with us?" he asked concerned and frightened.

Skipper shrugged. "Well, to be honest, many of them surely wouldn't be here."

Private shook his head in disbelief. "No Marlene? No others at all?"

"Nope?" Rico asked their leader, adding on.

Skipper shook his head. "No Marlene, no nobody."

"Oh dear…" Private's frown deepened as he thought of life without all his friends. "That wouldn't really be a life now would it?"

"Now do you see, boys? Think of all the things we wouldn't have if we hadn't of ditched those freaks. And if that doesn't make you see it differently then look at it this way, we still have the hippies in our memories and we can always go back to them there. We'll always have Madagascar!" Skipper told his team, jumping when a voice from behind him started up out of nowhere.

"Ah, Madagascar!" King Julien leaned over his habitat wall, intercepting the conversation much to the leader's annoyance. The king sighed happily as he remembered his old kingdom. "My home! De place where I King Julien de thirteenth- dat is me cuz I am de king- once ruled!"

"Thirteenth?!" exclaimed Skipper, jumping back in horror. "Holy mackerel, there were more of you!"

"Of course there were, silly penguin!" Julien started a list on his fingers. "There was my papa King Julien de twelfth and my papa's papa King Julien de eleventh and my papa's papa's papa King Julien de…" The list went on and on as the lemur king listed all his ancestors.

Skipper shook his head. It was suddenly spinning from thinking of more than one ring-tail roaming the earth. He wasn't a religious penguin but god help the world! He even thought about enacting a new mission. Operation: Prevent Lemur Reproduction. Effective immediately. The plan involved pliers, a tube of super glue, flashing lights, and a swarm of angry bats. The stubby penguin sighed. Just like Manfredi went…

The leader zoned back in to find that the ring-tail was still reciting his family tree. Skipper looked over to Maurice who appeared leaning up beside the brick wall, suddenly feeling very sorry for him. He saluted the aye-aye lemur. "On behalf of the entire world, I salute you, you poor unfortunate soldier."

Maurice shrugged at the gesture. "Thanks but I was only around for the last two King Julien's."

"Yeah!" King Julien cut in. "Maurice was my papa's royal adviser! You know, until de foosa came and ripped his limbs off…but eh, he survived and ran away with de circus!" the lemur king recalled. "Just like we almost did! Right, Maurice?"

Maurice's eyes widened a bit. "Uh, yeah, and because uh… _that_ happened, you became the king!"

"And about time too! I thought he would never give me dat crown!"

Kowalski blinked. "Are you sure that that was the best way of going about the situation?" the analyst asked the royal adviser.

"Look," Maurice yanked the analyst by his chest feathers, bringing Kowalski up to his face. "I'm just an adviser! There ain't much I can do for this guy! And you aren't telling him any different!"

"I miss papa." Julien admitted. "But if it wasn't for him being all going away like, I wouldn't be de royal me dat I am today!"

"Ring-tail has a point," admitted Skipper. "In a way."

"He does, Skippah?" Private asked.

Skipper nodded "Yes. Remember, if we didn't ditch the hippies we'd still be on a rundown old circus train booking shows and if it were up to that seal, we'd be doing it bare and without our tail-feathers."

"He was a sea lion, actually." corrected Private.

"Whatever." The leader rolled his eyes. "You get my point. Now I do admit that we did have our share of good moments with those hippies, and our time together with them has made us all better penguins as a result, right? And we'll always remember that, but now it's time to move on."

Kowalski was half paying attention, more focused on a previous statement. "Funny you should mention the common error that is the mistake of sea lions for seals-"

"Didn't I say we were moving on?" Skipper asked annoyed.

"Yes Skipper, but this advice could one day save us all." The analyst pointed out.

"Fine…  _enlighten_  us."

Kowalski nodded while the lemur king lying up on his habitat wall yawned and scratched himself at the beginning boredom. "There is a colossal but almost not colossal difference between the carnivorous seal and the forever daft sea lion. A seal being a bloodthirsty unstoppable horrifying monster of the deep blue that will rise and tear us limb from limb, DESTROYING US ALL!…While a sea lion is…slightly below intelligence."

Skipper raised a brow. "How slightly?"

Kowalski shrugged. "About 69 points below average."

"What a waste." The leader shook his head.

Julien kept counting on his fingers. "…and my papa's papa's papa's papa's papa's papa King Julien de-"

"We GET it!" Skipper rolled his eyes up at the wall. "There were more of you! Horrifyingly more of you!"

The four penguins stared at the lemur before a loud crash had their full attention. The team of commandos turned to the zoo entrance while the lemur king just tiredly yawned from up on his wall.

"What in the ham steak  _was_ that?" Skipper asked, staring back at his men.

"It sounded like it came from outside the zoo." Kowalski pointed. "It almost sounded like something hitting asphalt."

"A spaceship landing huh?" Skipper narrowed his eyes and extended his flipper forward. "Roll out men! Those squids aren't taking this zoo without getting through me first! …then Rico! …and Kowalski! …then Private I suppose..." He shrugged.

"Aw…" Private looked down.

"YOU HEAR THAT SPACE-SQUID? PAPA PENGUIN'S COMING FOR YA! HAH!" the leader proclaimed and the penguins were off in a belly slide to the source of the commotion.

King Julien blinked but then shrugged. "…then there was my papa's papa's papa's papa's papa's papa's papa's papa King Julien de…"


End file.
